This is an important wine for Chile. Marcelo Papa, chief winemaker with Concha y Toro, has been on a journey away from excessive ripeness. He has been picking as much as a month earlier for the Marques de Casa Concha Cabernet Sauvignon. While his experiments began in 2010, it’s only with this 2014 vintage that [...]

This is quite exciting. It’s a new high-end Pinot Noir from Chile, made by Torres. And it has been a long time coming. 20 years ago, Torres went prospecting for a special Chilean terroir with slate, to replicate the soils of Priorat. They found a site called Empedrado, which was a forested slope with slate [...]

Francisco Baettig, of Errazuriz, is a thoughtful, insightful winemaker. Like many Chilean winemakers, he has been thinking quite a bit about how to make his wines fresher and more interesting, and these two new wines are the latest stage in this journey.

His boss, Eduardo Chadwick wanted him to produce two new icon wines, but Francisco [...]

Impressed by these. A Chilean Sauvignon and Pinot from Casa Silva’s Paradones estate in Coastal Colchagua, a new-ish cool climate region of Chile. It’s just six kilometres from the chilly Pacific Ocean.

Kalfu is a new series of nine wines from innovative large Chilean producer Vina Ventisquero. They haven’t been released yet, but I got to try two of them. The Sauvignon in particular is of great interest. It’s an edgy wine, not a perfect one, but it shows the potential of Chile’s most northerly vineyard area, [...]

A few years ago I visited a remarkable coastal vineyard in Limari, Chile, with active limestone soils. It was Tabali’s Talinay vineyard, and it’s turning out some seriously impressive Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

I’m impressed with this 2012 Chardonnay. It’s really thought-provoking, with lots of textural detail on the palate.

Stefano Gandolini’s winery focuses solely on Cabernet Sauvignon from the Maipo Valley. This wine was new to me: nicely packaged, in a big heavy bottle, it made me a little wary. I was worried it was going to be very sweet, rich and quite alcoholic. What a nice surprise to pour it and find freshness, [...]

This is a remarkable wine, made by large producer Ventisquero on a very small scale from vineyards in the Atacama desert, in the far north of the country. It hardly every rains here, so the soils are quite unique. I reported on the Tara white a while back after tasting it in Chile; this red [...]

This is quite a remarkable wine. It’s also quite challenging, with really bold, edgy flavours. But brave winemaking like this – and, in particular, the decision to pick early, has to be rewarded. I reckon it’s one of Chile’s most interesting Syrahs, up there with the likes of Matetic and Vina Leyda – which, incidentally, [...]